Program Overview

• Learn from a teaching team with wide-ranging practitioner experience offering genuine insight into the criminal justice system
• Become involved in real casework on cold cases and case reviews
• Opportunities for field trips to places such as Belfast and Turin
• Benefit from interactive and practical teaching approaches that bring theory and practice to life

There are few subjects more compelling than crime. It is rarely out of the news headlines and dominates our TV schedules with crime boxsets regularly outperforming other genres. We are, as a nation, gripped by crime.

This popular course has been designed to bring together the methodological, academic and practical skills essential to enhance your professional development and career opportunities. As such, you engage with crime related professionals, agencies and organisations to develop your understanding of how they work and apply newly-learnt theories.

In Year 1, you gain an awareness of the key principles and concepts underpinning the study of crime. You explore the central theories and methodologies encountered within the social sciences and within criminology, and gain an understanding of key ideas underlying social policy and the criminal justice system.

In Year 2, you develop your understanding of criminological and social theory and explore a range of topics addressing significant and current themes from youth to violent crime. You also develop your ability to approach research in criminology.

In Year 3, you broaden your knowledge of topics in the field and put into practice your independent research skills by specialising in a topic of your own choice in completing your final year project.

In the course of three years, you gain an understanding of wide-ranging topics including crime and punishment, crime and the media, policing, crimes against humanity, gender and crime, and organised crime. You also acquire skills of gathering data using quantitative and qualitative methods, synthesising and interpreting evidence and assembling arguments, presenting evidence and formulating findings and conclusions.